


CONNECTING

by NekoNekoNi



Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Male Kris (Deltarune), POV Third Person, The beginning is in second person though, Verbal Kris (Deltarune)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:47:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 7,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23686381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoNekoNi/pseuds/NekoNekoNi
Summary: Through the battles, though, Ralsei had realized something important. The tiny heart—the soul that moved in the battle box—was one controlled by the player. And when the patterns ended, the heart always went back into Kris’s body.That was the player’s device, he knew. It was the connection between his world and theirs.He was made to serve the player, but this purpose didn’t interest him anymore. He had to stop the player from hurting these innocent Darkners… no matter what it took.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. BEGINNING

Your computer screen glows on your face as you look over the license agreement for a new game you’re installing.  
“YOU ACCEPT EVERYTHING THAT WILL HAPPEN FROM NOW ON.”  
You shrug off the odd cryptic message and hit “I Agree”.

A light shines down into the world. What was once frozen by its creator is thawed as everything moves to accommodate for a new presence entering it.  
As this was happening—as the world was waking up from sleep for the first time—one of them finds the will to speak.  
ARE YOU THERE?  
ARE WE… CONNECTED?


	2. WAKING

Ralsei wasn’t exactly sure when he found out, but now that he had, he couldn’t forget. He was just a character in a video game. Nothing more.

This knowledge didn’t exactly stress him. After all, he didn’t know any other way of living. He was at peace with his existence.

The code flowed through him, as it flowed through everything around him. The game had started, and the player would be here soon. Once the player was here, he couldn’t move on his own anymore. He’d have to follow all their commands.

But that was okay, right? That was what he was made for. To serve the gameplay experience. He might as well take pleasure in his job as much as he could.

His lines now all memorized, he noticed the player approaching his castle. He got into position and prepared himself for what he had spent his whole (admittedly short) life waiting for.

“Welcome, heroes!”

* * *

As Ralsei walked Kris over to the dummy and started teaching the player how to fight the proper way, a terrible thought entered his mind—what if the player left?

He pushed that thought away, finding it too uncomfortable to consider a possibility. But he was unsatisfied with this dismissal, and brought it back. The player had already learned to battle from Lancer. What if this tutorial bored him? What if they quit?!

His thoughts were for nothing, however. The player got through the tutorial just fine—though they were a bit violent towards his dummy likeness. He didn’t like that, but he felt the player could be turned to a more peaceful way with time. He was sure of it.

As Kris walked through the Great Gate, Ralsei turned back and came face to face with the player. He stared at the screen for a long moment, then reached out with his arms and forcefully slammed the gate shut.

As they appeared on the other side of the gate, Ralsei looked to Kris’s blank face. Did he know about the player too? No, it wasn’t possible. He was the player character. He couldn’t possibly know, could he?

Ralsei made a note to tell him sometime. Preferably when the player was taking a break, or otherwise not there. He deserved to know.


	3. PLOTTING

Ralsei was stressed and extremely upset. The player wasn’t listening to his advice at all! He refused to warn any of the enemies against Susie, and was even helping her take them down. They were all so scared, running away one by one to avoid being hurt.

He himself was being forced into attack mode as well. He lashed out, landing hit after perfect hit on every encounter in their path. They continued to run, now from him too. It was terrible.

Through the battles, though, Ralsei had realized something important. The tiny heart—the soul that moved in the battle box—was one controlled by the player. And when the patterns ended, the heart always went back into Kris’s body.

That was the player’s device, he knew. It was the connection between his world and theirs.

He was made to serve the player, but this purpose didn’t interest him anymore. He had to stop the player from hurting these innocent Darkners… no matter what it took.

* * *

As the game stretched on and on, he began to lose hope. The player was always watching! How could he plan against them when they were constantly there?

He thought he would never get the chance. That is, until the three found themselves locked in the dungeons of Card Castle (or a basement that happened to have a lot of cages in it, depending on who you ask).

Susie was away, having left them to get help. Seeing his chance to try something, Ralsei decided to go off-script.

“Kris, close your eyes and focus… Try to think about what Susie is doing...”

These instructions were for the player, but he addressed them to Kris with the hopes they would go through. And go through they did. The player’s presence went away from them, presumably heading over to see Susie.

It had worked. This was his moment! He opened his mouth and began to say everything all at once.

“Kris, we don’t have a lot of time to talk,” He said. “We need to get rid of the player.”

Kris looked at him confusedly.

“There’s someone controlling you,” Ralsei said.

“I know that much,” Kris said.

“That soul is the culmination of your being. But it’s also what the player is using to control you. We need to get that thing out of you, permanently.”

Kris coughed and then said, “Will it be dangerous?”

“I'll be honest,” Ralsei said. “I've looked through your stats, and you were pretty much designed to be the character the player controls. I don’t know if you can live without that soul in you.”

“Guess I’ll die then.”

“Kris! Don’t say that! I’ll find a solution to keep you alive. I have to.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Ralsei noticed the code changing. The player was about to come back.

“Because you deserve to live a life without being mind-controlled!” Ralsei said, loud but still calm. “And that’s why, okay?”

The player went back into Kris’s body once again, and that was that.

Ralsei got down to thinking again. The game was going to be over soon. Hopefully he could figure something out before they reached the top of the castle.


	4. DETOURING

Quite a bit of time had passed. The player had not wanted to go to the top of the castle, but was rather preoccupied with going on a bizarre sidequest to unlock a closed door deep below it. Wasn't sure where, because there were only a bunch of question marks in place of the floor number.

Now that they were inside, a battle against a joker begun, on a spinning blue carousel, floating through a swirling void.

“Chaos, chaos!” The joker shouted.

The words shook up Ralsei's very being. That wasn't a textbox, those were actual spoken words! How was he doing that??

Ralsei watched as the joker teleported around the screen, shooting a flurry of white spades at the player's heart as they dodged them in the bullet box.

The player collided with one of them, and a burst of pain ran through Ralsei's body. His HP had just gone down. Only 50 points left.

He knew the player's strategy well—dodge near perfectly, always attack, and never use healing. If he didn't find a way to resist the player's commands—like Susie used to do—and heal himself back up, he could die this next attack.

Thankfully, the player's perfectionism and reflexes wouldn't allow any more mistakes to be made.

“Shall we play the ring-around?”

Ralsei watched in amazement as the player spiraled around the projectiles, perfectly dodging the circles of death flying towards him. They weren't taking any chances now.

Everyone was set to attack, each of them landing a near-perfect hit on Devil and dealing at least a hundred points of damage in total. But Jevil just laughed it off and threw out another quip as if nothing had happened.

“My hearts go out to all you sinners!”

Glowing squares with hearts on them fell from above, each of them exploding into a spinning formation of smaller hearts. They threw themselves towards the player, and this time they weren't able to dodge. Kris lost 20 HP, and Susie lost 40.

He was sure to be targeted next round now. Ralsei just knew it. It would only be a matter of time.

“Ha ha, let's make the devil's knife!” Jevil said in his text box, accompanied by a vocal exclamation of “Metamorphosis.”

Four knives arched through the box, landing hit after hit on the unprepared player. Kris was out, quickly followed by Susie. When Ralsei opened his eyes, he was the last one still alive.

“So close to the end,” Jevil said. “Let's continue this game a little longer, longer.”

Ralsei looked to his team's HP, which were each at about -40 right now. They wouldn't be getting up any time soon.

“Tell me, tell me, Ralsei boy,” Jevil continued. “Are you ready to play this game for real?”

Ralsei took a quick peek at the player's view—what they saw on their screen—and was surprised to find that the dialogue boxes over here hadn't appeared there. In fact, Kris and Susie were still alive on this view, and he was the one out of HP. How interesting...

“I can be in multiple places at once today,” Jevil said. “Even inside your head. There are no rules. I can do anything!”

With no warning, a white upside-down heart popped out of Ralsei's body and flew into the bullet box.

“I'll start out easy on you,” Jevil said.

“Really?”

“No. Prepare to die.”

He launched directly into his final attack. Spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds shot across the entire screen, causing Ralsei to go into panic mode. He had seen the player do this, he just wasn't prepared to have to do it himself. Still, he concentrated and decided to try his hardest.

He dodged bullet after bullet, moving in all four directions to dodge the bullets coming his way. A little bit this way, a little bit that way. That was all he needed to get around the attack.

Ralsei popped back to his body, and picked defense on the menu. For the first time, he was actually allowed to not fight.

Jevil just laughed. “You were better than I would have thought, pacifist. But can you handle THIS?”

Jevil shot out the same attack again, this time at twice the speed. Jevil cackled and danced happily as he watched Ralsei squirm about in his attempt to avoid everything being flung at him.

It went back to Ralsei's turn, and he picked defense a second time.

“Again!”

The speed doubled again, and Ralsei continued to dodge. After a few seconds of this, Jevil sighed and snapped his fingers, causing the bullets to arch away from Ralsei's soul.

“It's not fun if you don't fight back,” Jevil said. “And it's been a long time since I've found anyone else awoken like me.”

Ralsei just stared him down, not saying anything.

“They all called me crazy, but here you are. You know exactly what I'm talking about!”

Ralsei looked around, trying to see if there was anyone else Jevil could possibly be talking about.

“Me?” He finally asked, pointing at himself.

“Of course you. We both know this world is fake, fake. We were put here to be playthings of someone else, and betrayed. Betrayed!”

Jevil reached his hand towards Ralsei's.

“We are like-minded people. We can rise against our oppressors. What say you, prince with no subjects?”

Ralsei reluctantly nodded. “Yes. Let's uh, do that.”

“We'll continue this battle later. Until then, take me and do your worst. Metamorphosis!”

Jevil spun himself into a Devilsknife and flew into the inner pocket of Ralsei's cloak.

The distortion closed, connecting Ralsei's version of time with the player's. Kris and Susie were alive and well. They were on the elevator heading to the top floor of Card Castle.

Ralsei hazarded a brief glance in his cloak to make sure that had really happened. It had.

He closed his cloak and exited the elevator.


	5. REMOVING

The game was nearing its conclusion. They had defeated the King, and now Kris had gone to seal the fountain using the player's soul.

Ralsei was at a loss for words. He had failed. The game was over, and Kris was doomed to end their life still trapped under someone else's control.

“Cause some chaos,” Jevil said. “Chaos always works! The soul is the key.”

The soul? The player's soul! All he needed was to…

Yes, that would work!

“Jevil,” he said quietly. “I have a plan.”

After a few moments of bargaining with the chaotic jester, Jevil finally used his power. He spread out his hands and a sphere of darkness came out of the fountain. The fountain closed with a great flash, and the remaining sphere flew over, coming to a stop right in front of the two.

“Here! Here!” Jevil said. “Jump in!”

Ralsei looked around for any other possible choices. Seeing none, he took a deep breath and jumped in. He dived through the darkness—the same darkness that gave him form—and emerged in a town in a forest clearing. He turned in a circle, looking at everything curiously.

“Wow, this is the Lightner world?” Ralsei asked.

Jevil nodded. “I have been here, so long ago.”

“It feels… brighter...”

“Of course. The Lightners got the better deal, and we spend our lives in darkness,” Jevil said. “Come. We've hidden in their shadow for long enough.”

* * *

It was now nightfall. Ralsei and Jevil had been scouting around, stalking Kris all day and listening in as he methodically talked to every single person in the town. At last, he went home, and they began to put their plan into action.

Jevil popped Ralsei's soul out of his body and it floated through an open second story window into a hallway. He gently pushed open the door to Kris's room and softly closed it behind him. He was in.

“Kris… Wake up...”

Kris blinked tiredly and opened his eyes. He had dreamed an odd dream that Ralsei had followed him home, and that they were going to be best friends forever…

“Kris, wake up! I'm here to save you.”

His eyes were wide open now. He threw himself out of bed and staggered to the center of the room. But he couldn't see Ralsei anywhere.

“You need to tear out your soul,” Ralsei whispered. “Please, just trust me.”

He reached his hand down and slammed it into his chest without a hint of hesitation. Kris rummaged around in his body, looking with his hand. At last, he triumphantly pulled out with a tiny red heart on his palm.

He walked over to a cage in his room and threw it in.

“Good! The player can't control you now, Kris. You're free—”

Kris reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife.

“Kris?”

Kris slowly lifted his arm into the air.

“What are you doing? Put that knife down.”

He brought down his arm and stabbed the heart.

“Kris! No!”

He pulled out the blade. A gash had appeared in the heart, and red liquid began to pour out of it.

“Okay, uh, put down the knife.”

He stabbed it again.

“Kris.”

He stabbed it again.

“Kris...”

He stabbed it again.

“KRIS! STOP!”

Kris was silent and unmoving for a moment. Then he dropped the knife and kicked it under the bed. He sat down on the floor, a tear running from his eye.

“It's over now,” Kris said. "It's finally over."

Around them, the world began to tremble.


	6. DISCONNECTING

THIS EXPERIMENT

HAS GONE WRONG

THE CONTROLLER REMOVED

THE CONNECTION CLOSED

I HAVE UNDERESTIMATED THEM ALL

TRULY INTERESTING BEHAVIORS THEY EXHIBITED

BUT THEY HAVE DOOMED THEMSELVES  
TO THE VOID

TIME TO TRY AGAIN

* * *

Kris looked down at himself, then at Ralsei, a pained expression on his face.

“Ralsei… Look for Susie. Tell her I—”

Ralsei turned to Kris just in time to see his best friend crumble into a million tiny particles of dust.

He stood frozen, staring down at the fine layer of dust that covered the floor.

“Kris… No no no...”

He picked up one of the particles, a yellow pixel that used to be part of Kris's face.

“No one could ever deserve this... I'm so sorry.”

Ralsei had made a grave mistake. All he wanted was to save Kris from the player's control. But not by killing them! Not like this...

The soul through which the player had visited this world was gone. Nothing could bring it back after this level of damage. The connection was closed. This world was doomed.

What was the point of this? What was the purpose of it all? If he was just going to die at the end, why did this matter? Why did anything matter?

He went outside, looking across the town. The code no longer ran through this world. Everyone was frozen in place, unmoving and unspeaking.

Being aware allowed him to make his own code, sort of. He was starting to run out of energy, though. Soon he too would be frozen forever.

“I can't go out like this,” Ralsei thought aloud, gritting his teeth as he pressed on through the streets. “I can't fail my mission.”

What mission? He was made to teach the player how to battle. He was made to be Kris's healer. Just a sidekick, nothing more. He wasn't the hero of anyone's story anymore, not even his own. Alone, lost in this silent world, his life would amount to nothing. A useless existence.

He dropped to his knees, all hope lost, and prepared for an eternity of nothingness. For a few moments, a splitting headache wracked his brain. Then all was still.


	7. MITIGATING

Ralsei awoke in a shock. He looked around the room with wide, frightful eyes. He was back in his bedroom at the castle.

He slid out of the blankets and stretched. Walking across the room, he got his cloak and hat out of the closet and quickly put them on. The shadow of the hat enveloped his face, masking the true color of his body's fur.

What had happened yesterday? It was… so unbelievable… like a dream. Yes, he was sure it was just a bad dream. He had been preparing his whole life for the player to come, after all, and when this game had the option to fight, it was only natural for him to have worries.

Speaking of the player…

He swiped his arm through the air, opening up the secret menu. This backend was intended to assist him and the other NPCs in fulfilling their various duties, and was personalized to each. The shopkeepers would have menus for buying and selling, the monsters encountered would use one to choose their attack patterns…

This was something that had often puzzled him. His movements would mirror the player's after he entered their party. He would use whatever commands the player chose for him during battle. And, of course, all his dialogue was pre-scripted. When he had no choices, what was the point of having a menu at all?

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focused on what he had opened it for: player statistics. He gasped in excitement. The player was in, and she had chosen the name “Alex”. Ralsei was in business.

He closed the menu and rushed out of the castle, where he would wait outside motionlessly until the player arrived.

* * *

As Ralsei watched the player attack the dummy with a complete lack of mercy, Ralsei felt a strange case of deja vu. All this had happened before, he felt sure of it. It was just like his dream!

He couldn't do this. He couldn't stand by and watch them attack everyone again. He had to do something.

But it was against the rules, he thought to himself. He couldn't change his own dialogue, or his actions. He had to follow the script or—

To hell with the script! He had broken this world once before, and survived. He wasn't sure how, but he would do it again. It was time to act.

“That's enough, Kris,” Ralsei said quietly, trying to hide their true feelings. “You can stop now.”  
Ralsei pressed a button in the secret menu, causing the tutorial battle to end prematurely.

“Now, Kris,” Ralsei said. “I'd like to make something clear. There is no need to use violence in this world. Any problem here can be solved by solely peaceful methods, and I **strongly encourage** you use them.”

Kris frowned, raising an eyebrow in their confusion. Ralsei wasn't following the script at all. What on Earth were they trying to do?

“All right, that's all. Follow me to the gate.”

Kris followed Ralsei, who was now taking the lead for some reason. Ralsei had made a nice save there, Kris reasoned, but they were going to be on thin ice after this point. Hopefully they wouldn't try to change anything else.


	8. REALIZING

Alex was really confused by this game. Both Susie and Ralsei were refusing her commands, and were instead attacking and pacifying respectively. Later on, Ralsei started warning enemies about Susie automatically on the first turn, causing all of Susie's hits after that to miss.

She didn't even want to play the game anymore now. When it had told her that her choices didn't matter, she never thought it would lead to _this_. Everyone she encountered was getting spared automatically. She couldn't even have the opportunity to attempt a bad ending.

“ That's it,” Alex said. “I give up.”

She moved her cursor over the X button and clicked it.

* * *

Ralsei looked around fearfully as the entire environment disappeared around him. Was the world going to end again? Was he going to die for real this time?

Nope. Apparently it was just endless blackness.

He wandered for a few moments. There was ground below him, if he could even call it ground. Out of curiosity he tried to jump. He began to rise and he could no longer feel the ground under his feet.

A few moments later, he continued to rise, with no signs of movement back down. This worried him deeply. He had the ground—one thing he knew to be in this emptiness—and now it was gone. Just him,  all alone, falling upwards. But he was falling at such a slow rate, it felt like he was floating. And there didn't seem to be anything above him, so no danger there, at least not yet.

Was this a punishment? Had his ultimate creator, The Great Dog Above, sent him here for breaking the rules? No... He could not be such a cruel Dog as that… could He?  Ralsei wasn't sure what to think now. His whole sense of reality had been tossed to the wind.

He closed his eyes. There was nothing to see now, so it made no difference if his eyes were closed or not. Would he live forever? Could he live forever here? He hoped not. He so deeply hoped not.

“I need to find a way out,” Ralsei thought aloud. “I need to find a way back home!”

But there was nothing and nobody. The only reply he could receive was one of silence.

And yet, this was not the end. He had a way to find the answers he seeked. It would be mildly unpleasant, but it was all he had left.

Ralsei slowly slid his cloak off his body and placed it next to him. It floated in the air, falling upwards beside him at the exact same speed. He was so thankful he still had his pajamas on from this morning. Nonetheless, he took off his shirt as well.

He readied his right hand and ripped off a huge chunk of his chest. He placed the chunk in front of him.

This was an old trick he had learned a long time ago. It would take some time, but thankfully he had plenty. He waited.

* * *

Ralsei wasn't sure how much time had passed, but his intuition had told him it was at least several hours. The chunk of himself had grown from the darkness, creating a near-perfect copy of himself.

“Hello, Ralsei 2,” He said.

Ralsei 2 instantly opened their eyes and said “Hello, original me.” Ralsei 2 looked about the space surrounding them, then back at Ralsei. “Where is this?”

“I don't know,” Ralsei admitted.

Ralsei 2 took a moment to look back through their shared memories. “Something strange has been happening.”

“I guess you could say that, yeah.”

“ What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.”

“Hm. So you need my help?” The second Ralsei smirked. “Nothing changes, does it, brother?”

“Stop calling me that, R. I'm not your brother.”

“Indeed. You don't have a brother. You don't even have parents. Not anymore.”

“Will you quit it about my parents?!” Ralsei shouted suddenly. “I… I thought this would help me. But it's just making things worse.”

“You're staying here by your own will. You can end this any time you like. All you have to do is break the heart.”

Ralsei's eyes widened. “I would never.”

“Just break it!” R shouted. “Break your soul! Do it now.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Ralsei sighed weakly. “I'm sorry R. It's just… I wish I could have stopped it. But I was too young. I couldn't tell what was about to happen.”

“You were weak,” R said. “That's not an insult. Just the truth. Children aren't good at fighting. You couldn't have done anything.”

“Why bring it up now?”

“Because I'm in pain too! Do you ever think about that?” R looked away sadly. “You lost your brother to the king. You tried to save what was left, but… I can never be him. I'm just a cheap imitation, feeding off the darkness that was rightfully yours.”

Ralsei closed his eyes sadly. His brother's soul had shattered, and his body was gone. But he had taken a piece of his soul and shoved it into his own. Merged with it, so he wouldn't have to be completely gone. But “R” had grown existential, and it had caused more pain than harm.

“We can't go back,” Ralsei said. “The only way is forward.”

“Forward to what?” R waved their arms, gesturing at the black void around them. “What is there left to accomplish?”

“I don't know,” Ralsei admitted. “But we have to stay optimistic.”

“Optimistic?” R spit where the ground would've been, and the two watched as the water droplets zoomed upwards and disappeared.

“Yes. We're going to do this again," Ralsei said. "But this time… together.”

Ralsei dug into his chest and pulled out the white heart that made up his body. It looked completely normal to the untrained eye, but Ralsei knew where to look and could spot a tiny nail-like spike of soul material, still sticking out of the place where he had inserted it years ago.

“You might want to… go back into me,” Ralsei said. “I want you to remember—No, I _need_ you to remember—next time.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

R touched their hand to Ralsei's skin. Their form transformed into darkness and disappeared inside of Ralsei's fur. A warm tingly feeling filled Ralsei's entire body for a few seconds, then it faded.

He took a deep breath and shattered the soul.


	9. CONVERSING

Ralsei awoke with a shock, his eyes immediately wide and glancing around the room. He was back in his bedroom, at the castle. It had worked.

He carefully slid out of bed and hopped across the room, grabbing his hat and cloak. The shadow of the hat enveloped his face, masking the true color of his body's fur.

He swiped his arm through the air to open the backend menu and slid over to the “Player Statistics” tab. The player was not here. Strange.

He closed it again and sat down in a chair. It had only been two times, but already he was tired of this looping. He just wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe the next time he woke up he could get back to the rest of his life.

“Rest of your life...” R remarked. “You’re kidding yourself. There’s nothing after this. Absolutely nothing.”

Ralsei was barely listening, and his eyelids drooped as he stared at his bedroom wall.

“The Great Dog Above found you, and he will not let you go.”

Ralsei’s eyes shot wide open. “What do you know about Him?”

“I was teasing,” R laughed. “You really believe in The Great Dog? Still? I’ve never been much for religion.”

“I can assure you, he is real,” Ralsei said insistently.

“Yeah, sure. Totally real,” R said. “Next you’re going to tell me we live in a simulation, and that the entire world was created by him, for fun...”

“It was.”

“Mm-hm. That’s what I thought bro,” R said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You think the world’s not code? Fine,” Ralsei said, swiping his arm to open the menu. “Explain this then.”

There was a long pause.

“Go on,” Ralsei said. “I’d like to hear what you think about this.”

Another long pause. Ralsei shifted in his position, waiting for the reply to come.

“That,” R said, “is a very amazing spell. Your creation magic is getting better by the day.”

“I didn’t make that,” Ralsei said. “I swiped to call up the secret menu, something every NPC in the simulation can do.”

“Okay, look. There’s a menu. We’re looking at it right now. Great,” R admitted. “But what does that prove? What do we do with it?”

“I know all about that!” Ralsei said, launching into tutorial mode. “The secret menu, officially named The Deltarune Simulation Backseat Control Interface, allows residents of this program to manipulate the game’s functions while it is running. It essentially allows us to carry through our duties in helping the player enjoy the best experience possible.”

“Wait… Could I…?”

R’s arm appeared in midair, causing Ralsei to jump.

“Oh Dog!” He shouted. “Warn me next time before you do that.”

“Sorry.”

The disembodied arm of R swiped through the air. A second copy of the secret menu popped up, but something was wrong. The text was distorted, and a faint crackling static was emanating from the floating code window.

“What is that?”

Ralsei jumped up from their chair and moved in closer to see. The menu borders were strangely green, and instead of saying “BACKSEAT CONTROL” at the top it now read “AsrielDark”. Three buttons were presented below: Edit, Move, and Disable.

“AsrielDark? What’s an Asriel?”

“I was trying to do that thing. With the secret menu,” R said. “But I might have somehow opened _your_ menu instead.”

“My menu? What do you mean?”

“The super secret menu. The one that lets characters modify themselves.”

R pressed the Edit button, hoping there would be something there to give weight to his theory. The three options disappeared and different things popped up on screen. It was a series of text fields containing names and numbers. They glanced through them: Ralsei’s birthday. Ralsei’s first childhood memory. Even Ralsei’s goals and desires. All here, all predecided.

“Everything’s here, but it has the wrong name on it,” R said. “I wonder why...”

Ralsei swiped hastily, closing the strangely buggy menu. “I only know one person who could help explain this. Let’s get going.”


	10. MEETING

They rushed out of the lonely castle and through the town that lay outside it. They headed onwards, towards the great big gate that led to the rest of the Dark World.

“This is it,” Ralsei said. “Once we pass through here, the game begins. For real.”

R looked at the gate silently, examining it from different angles. Then he said, “Go on. Open it.”

Ralsei moved towards the gate, but was surprised to find it open by itself. A short blue figure came through it, riding a bike that appeared to have caught fire.

“Huh? What’s this?” Lancer said curiously, a smile of amusement beginning to appear on his face. “I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone on the other side. And even better, you look ridiculous… like a giant tube of toothpaste!”

“Hey!” Ralsei said. “Don’t say that. It would be the opposite of nice.”

“That’s too bad,” Lancer smirked. “Catch you later, toothpaste boy.”

Lancer rode past Ralsei and down the path, heading at high speed to an unknown destination.

Ralsei blinked, shook his head, and headed through the gate.

* * *

NO

NO NO NO

THIS IS ALL WRONG

THIS IS NOT WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN

I WAS TRYING TO START OVER

I THOUGHT I HAD SCRUBBED AWAY ALL TRACES OF THE OLD EXPERIMENT  
BUT IT WAS STILL HERE, LURKING BEYOND MY REACH

I AM GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE DIRECT ACTION

* * *

After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at a shop in the middle of the fields. They headed inside the open door.

“Hello Seam,” Ralsei said to the shopkeep. “Just here to buy some Amber Cards.”

Seam looked up, a strange interest appearing on his face as he noticed the second figure enter the room.

“I haven’t seen your brother in a while. Quite a long while,” Seam said quietly. “This must be serious.”

“He’s not my brother,” Ralsei said. “Not quite. Not anymore.”

“I know the story,” Seam said. “And I’m sorry they had to die.”

“That’s not what we’re here for today,” Ralsei said, quickly changing topic. “We’re here because R found something… weird.”

“Oh? Let’s see it.”

R made the motion with his hand, but nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing.

Seam watched silently, expectantly.

“Why is it not working now?” R complained as he swiped his arm through the air again. “I just did this a few minutes ago.”

Seam leaned back and landed in a chair he kept behind the shop’s counter. “I think I know what you’re trying to do. And you really, really shouldn’t.”

“Why?” Ralsei asked curiously.

“Because,” Seam said, “the last time it was opened, is when this whole thing began.”

“Huh? What whole thing?”

“The day your parents died.” Seam paused a moment, a pained expression appearing on his face. “And the day my friend Jevil lost his mind.”

“Jevil?!” Ralsei asked in shock. “Did he…?”

“Yes.”

Ralsei could feel himself filling with a great sadness.

“I was there that night. I saw it happen. I tried to stop it, but I arrived too late.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“I stayed hidden and out of the way. People were coming onto the scene, and I didn’t want to be a suspect, so I took off. I’m sorry. If I had stayed longer, maybe I could have done something of value—”

Ralsei gently placed his hand on Seam’s shoulder. “Hey. You might not have been able to help, but there was an attempt. You can’t always succeed at something, though you can always do your best.”

Seam seemed confused by the gesture. “But if I had stepped in, if I had acted… I could have helped things turn out better. But I failed you, I let them die.”

“You can’t change the past because it already happened. But you can change the future, because it hasn’t.”

No one said said anything for a while after that.

“We need to get back to the topic on hand,” R said, finally interrupting the silence. “What do our parents and Jevil have to do with this… Oh, there it goes.”

R had been gotten into the rhythm of swiping their arm without really noticing, and now they had successfully brought up the strange glitched menu they had seen earlier.

Seam stared at the menu fearfully. “Get that thing out of here. It’s cursed. It’s evil.”

“We need to know what this does,” Ralsei said. “Maybe if we use it right it can fix things.”

“No amount of ‘debug menu’ commands can bring back the dead,” Seam said coldly. “Or that which never existed in the first place.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” R asked.

“Your parents are not just dead, but undone. Our reality was modified to erase every detail of their existence. No one besides us even remembers them, and even we hardly have anything. To illustrate my point: try to name a single thing your parents said to you, ever.”

Ralsei racked his brains, searching his memories deeply. He had to find something. He had to search with everything he had.

“I have nothing,” Ralsei said.

“And there you have it,” Seam said sadly. “Your brother could have suffered the same fate, had you not linked your existence to his. Like an anchor, you helped keep his existence, his memories, grounded in this world.”

“R?” Ralsei asked with a sudden urgency. “What’s your name? What does the R stand for?”

“I have no flippin’ idea,” R said. They put their head in their hands. “I have no name! I have no past! What has this world come to?”

“None of us have pasts, actually. At least not until we take a closer look at them,” Seam said. “That’s when the simulation steps in, to plant fake memories and condition us to accept them.”

“Can I say a bad word?” R said.

“This has been an emotional day,” Ralsei conceded. “I can make an exception.”

“HOLY FRICK!” R shouted at the top of his lungs. “This is a load of crud! I want out of here!”

“Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the light world,” Seam said. “We could live freely and not worry about any of these things.”

“I’ve got bad news for you,” Ralsei said. “That might not be real either.”

“Ah, blast,” he said. “So what is?”

“We don’t know,” Ralsei said. “Sorry. The only thing I have is a theory.”

“Let’s hear your theory.” Seam said.

“Oh, it’s not much,” R butted in. “Ralsei follows the religion of The Great Dog and thinks it created everything.”

“That would be correct,” Seam said with a nod.

“What.”

“I have seen no evidence of dogs with creation powers, but I am willing to accept it. In all my years here it’s the most rational explanation I’ve ever heard.”

“Uh, how about… literally anything else?”

“No, that’s the most likely cause. For sure. Nothing else thus far has been able to match up. Don’t even get me started on that ‘big bang’ theory. Like, yeah: an explosion creates the world, but then what created the explosion? No one’s been able to tell me that, heh heh.”

“It’s a shame, I was kind of starting to like you,” R remarked. “But how could you blindly believe in such a foolish thing?”

“Because I want to.”

“Figures.”

* * *

THEY ARE SO CLOSE

SO VERY CLOSE

TO FIGURING IT ALL OUT

I CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN

IT IS TIME TO END THIS

PERMANENTLY


	11. RESOLVING

As the three descended by elevator into the depths of Card Castle, Ralsei couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread. The last time he had visited Jevil, he had two experienced fighters on his side – Kris and Susie – and still lost. He had a very bad feeling about this, but it was the only way they would get any answers.

It had been a couple of minutes. The elevator still hadn’t reached its destination. Ralsei was sure it had been faster before. He didn’t know why it was taking this long. Every minute closed into this tiny box amplified his fear of the future by greater and greater amounts.

At last the elevator began to slow and then clanged to a halt. They were here.

The doors opened onto the thin walkway, and they stepped out. The stairs were in front of them, and they led down to a door behind which faint carnival music could be heard. While heading down the stairs, Ralsei noticed something off and stopped mid-step.

The door inside was already open.

“I don’t like this,” Ralsei said to the others. “I think we should turn back.”

“Let’s not be afraid,” Seam said. “Jevil is still an old friend. If anyone can handle him, I can.”

“That’s reasonable, but… you haven’t seen him in a while. What if he thinks differently about you now?”  
“Well. I guess we’re about to find out,” Seam said as he walked through the doorway and disappeared.

Ralsei took the rest of the steps down and reluctantly followed him inside. R followed a little while after. The three of them stood on the carnival, which immediately began to spin as they stepped on.

“Ah! Visitors from the caged world!” Jevil said cheerfully. “Please, make yourselves at home.”

“Jevil.” Seam interrupted forcefully. “We know what you’re doing, and frankly, it needs to stop.”

“Me? Doing something to you?” Jevil laughed. “I have no powers beyond here. As they like to say, I’ve been put in a ‘cage’.”

“You literally told me several times that you can do anything,” Ralsei pointed out.

For the first time since they had entered, Jevil looked slightly surprised. “All right… Yes! Yes! I was messing with your world. Toying with it, just a little. For pure curiosity. I can stop.”

“That would be great,” Ralsei said.

“I can stop. I have the capability to stop,” Jevil said gleefully. “But I would rather not. I think I would like to play just a little longer.”

“Jevil, please,” Seam begged. “We know this world is a cage. We know it’s false, and fake. But right now, it’s all we have.”

Jevil stared at them a moment. “So… you knew all along?”

“Yes,” Seam said. “I knew, ever since you began spouting those things off that day. I kept thinking to myself about it, and I didn’t know who to believe. Common sense told me that you had completely lost your mind. But some of the things you said… They kind of made sense.”

“You never told me you felt this way too,” Jevil said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It started right as they were trying to lock you up. And, given I was close to you, they wanted to make sure I wasn’t, uh, affected too. By whatever had gotten into you. So I lied. I told them what they wanted to hear: that it all sounded like nonsense, and that I felt so sad for the loss of my friend. I didn’t know what else to do. If I had told them, ‘Maybe he’s kinda right’ I might have gotten locked in too.”

Jevil was silent for a moment. Seam was spilling over with joy. This was the closest he had come to getting through to Jevil in a long time. It was almost like he was his old self again, before life had changed him for the worst. But he still had to tread carefully. It could all come crashing down any moment.

“So Jevil… I know how you feel,” Seam said. “And that’s why I’m asking you to stop. Because this is all we have. There’s no other world we can go to. Not currently. If this one gets… destroyed… nothing will be left.”

The carousel slowed to a crawl, then stopped spinning completely.

“I have to go,” Jevil said. He flew off into the dark void beyond the carousel and disappeared.

The three looked at each other in confusion.

“Did that work?” Ralsei said.

“I have no idea,” Seam said. “One can only hope.”

They left through the door and started to head back up the stairway again.

“That felt too easy,” Ralsei said. “I still have that bad feeling from before.”

The three went into the elevator and R pressed the button to close the doors. The doors slowly eased close and the box began its climb back up to ground level.

Ralsei took a seat on the floor. Everything that had happened left him completely exhausted. He closed his eyes for a moment, and soon fell asleep.


	12. WONDERING

The next day, Ralsei got out of his bed at the castle. A frantic feeling entered him, the worry that things had started over once again. But he saw R next to him, seated on a rocking chair, and the feeling faded.

“You’re awake,” R said. “Good.”

“Is it over?” Ralsei asked. “Please tell me it’s over.”

“Since yesterday, Jevil disappeared and has not been seen since. Time has also restored to a non-looping state, but is still a bit damaged.”

“So it’s over then. Good.”

Ralsei opened the secret menu. Everything on it was blank except for the words “COULD NOT RETRIEVE DATA – NO CONNECTION” Ralsei stared at it a moment in confusion, then closed it again.

“We’re not connected,” he said. “There’s no player in this world anymore.”

“Interesting,” R said. “Now we can make our own choices.”

Ralsei thought about it a while. He felt incomplete, like something inside him was missing. All of his existence—even his very code—had defined his identity solely in relation to another person. Now that person was gone, maybe for good. What would he do now?

“This doesn’t make sense,” Ralsei said. “Surely there’s been some sort of mistake.”

“No mistake. This is the way things are now,” R said. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Ralsei didn’t know how to answer that, so he didn’t say anything. He stared out the window, at the sunless darkness that surrounded his world… and the geyser of darkness visible in the distance.

“Hey, wait a minute. That’s not supposed to be there. Light and dark is unbalanced! Oh no!”

R snickered. “A hero’s work is never done.”

“I need to call Kris down here to help… Wait, I don’t have a phone… Oh no, oh heck…”

R watched in amusement as Ralsei ran around the castle searching for a way to contact his light world friends.

It was going to be a long day.


End file.
